None of the 90 Norwood residents whose blood was tested for PCBs had concentrations high enough to cause health problems, the state Department of Public Health reported today.
“All the samples are within the normal range,” Health Commissioner Bailus Walker Jr. said. The tests were done on residents who lived near a field off Route 1 where record levels of the toxic chemicals were discovered in June. The 90 people tested were those most likely to have high levels of the chemical in their blood. “If those people are normal, we therefore wouldn’t expect that anyone else would have high PCBs because of that site,” Dr. John Cutler said. He is director of the state Division of Environmental Health Assessment and was involved in the tests.
Cutler said the test results showed that 47 people had between zero and 4 parts per billion of PCBs in their blood. Another 39 had between 5 and 9 parts per billion. Three had between 10 and 14 parts per billion. And just one person had a concentration of 30 parts per billion. The federal government has no standard for an acceptable level of PCBs in the blood, but Health Department Spokesman Petra Langer said the figure of 30 parts per billion or less is generally used as normal. She said the government estimates that 99 percent of the people in the country have that concentration. She said there have been no reports anywhere in the country of adverse health effects from that amount of PCB in the blood.
Last week, the Health Department reported that of the first 30 blood samples tested, none contained harmful levels of PCBs. PCBs were widely used as coolants in electrical equipment — particularly transformers — until the federal government banned them in 1977. They are known to cause cancer in laboratory animal and are suspected of causing ailments in humans, including liver, skin and gastrointestinal disorders. The only way to destroy PCBs is by incinerating them at extremely high temperatures in special facilities.
(Reporting by Randall Keith for The Patriot Ledger).
Archival Note: This article has been dynamically reconstructed from the original public record print archives of the Patriot Ledger
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